To update on four of the five prospects sent to Texas in that deal: Elvis Andrus is a two-time All-Star and was AL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2009; Neftali Feliz was an All-Star and AL Rookie of the Year in 2010; Matt Harrison was an All-Star this season and is 26-14 with a 3.23 ERA in 40 starts in 2011-2012; Jarrod Saltalamacchia has 20 homers, 46 RBIs and a .515 slugging percentage in 79 games for Boston.﻿

The Tex trade is one that is tough to stomach in retrospect, but a lot of how it turned out might not have worked for the Braves as it did for the Rangers. Andrus has been useful, but not a whole lot better than our sequence of Escobar/Gonzalez/Pastornicky/Simmons.

Salty had no place behind McCann, and has been mostly mediocre. This year he's slugging well, with a .285 OBP. And this five years after the trade.

Matt Harrison wasn't good until 2011. From 2008-9 he posted a 5.76 ERA. This team doesn't seem to have that kind of patience for starting pitching prospects, so I bet the team would have traded him anyway, they have little patience.

Neftali Feliz: he'd certainly have been a nice addition to the bullpen over the last few years, but the guy's only throw 200 innings in the majors, and was in rookie league when he was traded, with a whopping 56 professional innings under his belt. right now he's on the DL with an elbow strain.

It's easy to fault the team in retrospect, but that understates how much of a chance Texas took on some of these guys. A-ball and rookie-ball talent is a crapshoot, and on this trade they either scouted well or got lucky - in reality, a lot of both. Tip your camp to 'em.﻿